I personally think, The Nutcracker this year was the best end-of-year show by the Cheng Ballet Academy that I have ever watched. The production was pretty crazy: the never-ending snow-cutting and I got to make some of the Nutcracker Ballet dolls, which I’m still very proud of. But the result, I think it was very beautiful.
As usual, Ari, I and my mom went to see it together. This year, the venue was changed from UCC to the Victoria Theatre in the center city. Victoria Theatre is a historical building, probably the oldest theatre in Singapore. So, even the lobby was pretty.
They put the dolls we made in a little Christmas tree!
Aina had a few roles in this production. She was one of the mice in the first act, and danced in two different dances for the second act. She played the mouse in both shows.
And here is the mouse scene… could you guess which one is Aina?
And then, in the first show (Saturday), she was the corps de ballet for the Arabian dance. The lead dancer was Zecharie, and the rest of the corps de ballet was from the Ballet 3 students.
In the second show (Sunday), she was the lead, together with Shi Ying, for the Gingerbread Dance. She had never dance a lead role before, so she was very excited about this, and it was a huge deal for her. For this role, she got to wear a new tutu. A pink one with a huge bow on her head. We even got a photoshoot for this costume.
Here is the video of the dance:
And here is some behind the scene photos. Some were taken during rehearsals or right before the show started, some were right after the show finished.
After the last show, even Mr. Cheng had different expressions:
